Railway workers strike over unpaid arrears

The Ghana Railway Workers Union has today withdrawn its passenger services from Accra to Tema and Accra to Nsawam.

According to them, this strike is to protest the failure of government to pay their three months salary arrears and also dissolve the board of the Ghana Railway company as they demanded.

The railway workers earlier this month, served notice to embark on an industrial action if their call was not heeded.

However, weeks after their made their intentions known, they told Citi News none of their grievances have been addressed hence their decision to withdraw their services.

The General Secretary of the Railway Workers Union, Godwill Ntarmah, said, “We’ve withdrawn the service from this morning.”

“This is as a result of the National Executive’s council meeting we held,” he added.

According to Mr Ntarmah, the union arrived at this decision because the workers could not allow the situation persist over this festive period.

“The conclusion we came to was that since October, railway workers have not been paid and we thought going into the x-mas, it would be very difficult for us to allow the situation to continue so we gave the management of the company up to the 18th of December to ensure the full payment of salaries for the railway works are effected.”

Following their strike action the union has outlined four demands they want met before the resume work:

1) The payment full salaries from October to December.

2) The immediate dissolution of board of directors of the company.

3) A Guarantee that salaries will be paid at the end of the month.

4) Salary adjustments for railway workers.

Mr Ntarmah concluded saying, “If all these things are met, we will go back to work.”